


This Life We Lead

by orphan_account



Category: Narcos (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Heavy Angst, Implied Relationships, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Torture, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-25
Updated: 2020-03-25
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:34:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23305366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: You never know what kind of person someone will grow up to become.
Relationships: Javier Peña/Reader, Javier Peña/You
Comments: 4
Kudos: 9





	This Life We Lead

This job revolves around dubiety; Javier has come to terms with that fact. Questionable morales paired with questionable tactics leaves the general population wondering ‘which side is the lesser of two evils’? The answer is a hazy mirage through which his hand consistently slips. One lesson he can never seem to learn. 

He notices the remoteness of the location, the lack of security, the deafening quiet permeated solely by their footsteps. The Embassy isn’t supposed to know about this. He wishes he didn’t know about this. His bated breath swirls like a brewing storm in his lungs and his fingers twitch with the need to light a stick. 

Anticipation is a bitch. 

Moonlight streams in from the high, vaulted windows, casting an eerie glow along the concrete. Javier’s shadow stretches miles before him with each underneath passing of the light. The door they stop at is heavy, rusted, and bolted and squeals ear-piercingly as Carrillo’s men force it open. Once he steps through the threshold, it’s shut with an unnerving finality that sends chills down his spine. 

She sits, chained and shackled, across from him. Cuffs around her wrists bolted to the table and cuffs around her ankles bolted to the floor. She is still, silent. But her piercing eyes follow him as he moves forward. 

She is skinnier, her skin pallor, her demeanor indistinct. Javier can’t get a read on her, not anymore. Yet, her eyes are still the same striking color.

_ This is the first time Javier thinks he loves you. Standing in the high school’s corridor, putting up posters for the big game this coming Friday, your silhouette is beautifully framed by the afternoon sun. If he was religious or lyrically-inclined, he’d think it synonymous to an angel’s halo. Instead, he thinks how you look beautiful all the time anyway.  _

_ “Hand me the tape, please.” _

_ “What?” _

_ You turn your focus from holding the awfully-sketched poster to him, eyebrows raising. “The tape?” _

_ “Oh, right.” _

_ He fumbles with the dispenser as he holds it out to you to grab a piece. He watches dumbly at the way your tongue juts out slightly as you stick the piece on, at the way you climb down from the stepladder, at the way you step back with a small smile at your accomplished work.  _

_ “This is a terrible poster,” you deadpan even though you were the one to draw it. _

_ “That’s not true,” Javi insists, horribly attempting to lie through his teeth, “it’s… fine.” _

_ You give him that look that says ‘really?’ before the two of you crack up laughing at the absurdity of the situation. It’s just another poster that nobody will pay attention to at the end of the day.  _

_ But then his laughing slowly ceases as your eyes begin to shine in the shifting light and he can’t stop himself from blurting out, “I love you.” _

_ You don’t hesitate to say it back, “I love you too, Javi.” _

The air here is cold and unforgiving and there’s no sun shining down on her anymore. There’s no sun shining down on either of them anymore. Javier had debated leaving his jacket in the car amid the Columbian heat, but now he’s glad he didn’t. 

His hand grasps the cool metal of the chair and its legs scrape jarringly on the floor as he pulls it back to sit down. She won’t stop staring.

“Poor, poor Javi,” she sneers, “look at you all weathered and worn.” Her face remains placid, betraying nothing.

He forces his voice to keep steady as he replies, “And you all bruised and beaten.”

Aside from the way she looks akin to that of an addict separated from her addiction, she’s clearly been tortured. Black, purple, and yellow litter what skin he can see, her lip is busted, and her eyes are now dull and devoid of the life he once pictured for them. His hand would surely be cut wide open if he caressed her jaw.

Finally, she looks away off to the side, a wide smile causing the cut to crack and bleed again. “I always enjoyed it, didn’t I?”

_ Javier always spends his afternoons after school doing homework like a good student. Such a term is interesting because should one really be considered ‘good’ if the only reason is that they have nothing better to do? He doesn’ care about school as a whole. In fact, he doesn’t even really have to try and he still gets straight-A’s _

_ But you’re always in detention. Or suspended. Or something or other (there’s only so many punishments to give before the teachers realize it’s all only for show). You get into fights often. You have a short fuse and it gets lighted easily.  _

_ The two of you usually spend the rest of the evenings fucking, smoking, fucking again, and conversing over the current politics. Sometimes you fight, but the make-up sex is good, so maybe that’s why Javier hasn’t said anything. Because being with you hurts so good. _

“Didn’t you enjoy it too?”

_ This argument is just the same as all the others. So frequent, so mundane that who started it doesn’t even matter. It’s full of spite, fire, words said and unsaid. Javier’s neck is straining under his yelling. Your knuckles are split open from having punched the wall. Broken glass litters like the remnants of this relationship around you.  _

_ Yet, somehow, in the midst of this incessant fighting the two of you find yourselves locked in a different battle. One with lips and teeth and skin. Clothes are shed, hair is pulled, and it’s difficult to discern between the pain and the pleasure.  _

_ But the two of you get off on each other all the same, passing a joint back and forth as you lay heaving, sweaty, naked on the bed of broken bodies. This is where Javier decides he’s going to leave for college without a goodbye.  _

“Why are you working for Escobar?” He’s not playing these games anymore. 

“That’s a loaded question,” she answers, leaning back in the chair nonchalantly. “Are you sure you don’t want to ask ‘why are you the way you are now’?”

Keeping a cap on his emotions is increasingly difficult in her presence. He hopes she doesn’t notice how white his knuckles have become. It’s as if he can feel each individual muscle tense and taut just beneath his skin and ready to snap.

“What are you hoping to gain from this arrangement?”  
She cocks her head in mock innocence, batting her eyelashes. “What are you hoping to gain from this interrogation?” Hands slam upon the metal table and Javier jumps in spite of himself. “I know it’s tearing you up inside. If it makes you feel better, it’s tearing me up inside too. But I’m insane, so I guess I have far worse things to worry about.”

It feels as if he swallows a golf ball. “Escobar has access to any terrorist he could ever want, so why would he choose you?”

“Because I’m the best, obviously.” A moment’s pause. “Oh, I’m sorry, did you want a deeper answer? Something more analytical, perhaps? Then maybe we should talk about you. You were always the more interesting one with that whole inferiority complex you’ve got going on. I bet it’s only heightened now. With the stress of this job, I know you’ve gotten people killed, but you can’t do a damn thing about it except take one step forward and two steps back—”

“Enough!” The echo of his shout is loud and reverberates in his ears. 

She smiles that wicked, malicious, cruel smile reserved only for him. There is nothing but malintent in her eyes. “There you are. I’ll admit, I thought it’d take a lot more goading than that, but I suppose I overestimated you.”

Javier’s anger has spilled over, boiling his insides. Brief images of reaching across the table and strangling her, of kissing her, of fucking her senseless flash across his mind. Even years apart, miles apart, she still has him wrapped so fucking tightly around her finger. He’s been her fucking puppet this whole time, her fucking plaything for when she finds boredom hanging over her like a cloud. 

He can’t look at her, jaw clenched and molars grinding together, as he asks, “Why?”

“Because I wanted to see you.”

He truly doesn’t know why he expected a different answer. Or why tears brim the edges of his vision. He needs a break. He needs a fucking break. He needs—

The force with which he stands is enough to make the chair crash backward and this time he doesn’t flinch. Not outwardly. He struggles to pull the cigarettes from his pockets, struggles to light the end with his shaking hands, struggles to breathe deep enough to feel any sort of comforting familiarity.

He pushes on the door and stepping through the threshold feels as if breaking the surface of water after drowning. Her words, shouted through manic giggles and laughter, play on repeat in his mind.

“Don’t think you haven’t changed for the worse too, Javi! I just embraced mine and it’s due time you embrace yours!”

How does one live independently when they’ve been manipulated their whole life?


End file.
